Patapon 2 Merch We Want

Share.

If Sony would make this stuff, the economy would be fixed.

By Sam Bishop, Greg Miller

If there's one thing you know, it's that IGN loved Patapon. Besides giving it the award for PSP Game of the Year 2008 and a runner-up nod in terms of overall music/rhythm game, we still find ourselves bopping along to the pon-pon rhythms in our heads. Still, there's one thing that always bugged us about the release of the original game -- we never got any cool Patapon crap to spend our money on.

Sure, there was the Bearbrick Patapon-themed bear, but that little guy was less than a business card in length. We want some real chotchkeys. Our desks are begging to be overrun with Patapon stuff!

With Patapon 2 getting closer by the second, the IGN PlayStation Team has pulled together the following list of stuff Sony needs to get made and get out the door to dedicated consumers like us. If the company wants to move UMDs come May, it needs to kick its marketing department in the ass already. And, trust us, nothing markets a sequel better than the game's characters on a pair of panties -- ask Kratos.

Patapon Drum Peripheral

Why not shoot for the stars with our first pick, eh? It sounds crazy, but it could be so easy -- there's a mini-USB connection begging to be used at the top of the PSP. You buy the drum, use your cable to connect the bongo to the PSP, and suddenly you're beating the tribal drum in the privacy of your own home. You could even hook it up to the TV via the PSP's component cables and have a mini-console leading your Patapons into battle. Have the drumhead broken up into four parts that match the PSP's face button, and you've got a winner.

Patapon Ringtones

Everybody loves the Patapon beats, right? Why not mass produce the files so that we can easily download them to our phones? We're sure there are some questionable sites out there that already do this and that we could use some fancy computer program thingy to do this ourselves, but we're dumb and don't want to do mess with all these loose ends. Sony should be all too happy to take our money and give us ringtones of the PATA-PATA-PATA-PON variety. We want to be reminded of warfare when our moms call.

PSP Skins

Affixing stickers (or if you're really fancy, vinyl covers), to consoles isn't a new concept, and with all the front -- and especially back -- face real estate on the PSP, some of the higher-quality versions of things actually end up looking pretty slick. We're talking separate stickers for in-between the face buttons and leaving the PSP's brushed metal ring and such alone, but if there's a company with the resources (and the deep pockets) to make a seriously rad-tastic skin, it's Sony. Even if they didn't do it themselves, hooking up with the higher-end purveyors of the vinyl skins would be... well, the word "awesome" comes to mind.

Action Figures

Don't even try to deny it; when you first saw the little silhouetted chanting critters and their adorable roly-poly eyes, you totally wanted a little action figure -- and probably multiple ones so you could build your own little army and then film a bunch of stop-motion clips that would go up on YouTube and make you an instant Internet Celebrity(tm)(r)(c)(sm)(byob). Don't worry, though, brosef -- we were thinking the same thing. E-hi-five! Even if you weren't thinking about it before, you probably are now, right? Maybe a little wind-up action and an eye that focuses on the target ahead while he chants away in the theatre of the mind.

Downloads Into Other Games

Franchise crossovers are all the rage these days. Just look at stuff like Namco x Capcom or Chaos Wars or... you know what? On second thought, don't think about those examples and concentrate on truly awesome ones -- like LittleBigMetalGearSolidPlanetAwesomesauce or chibi Kratos in Hot Shots Golf. On the PSP, though, there's really no serious crossover love, which is exactly where the Sony powers of cross-pollination and synergy and buzzword manufacturing all come to bear. Pons in LocoRoco? LocoRocoses in Patapon? We will buy.

Plushies

If just the idea of Patapon action figures sent our collective heads whirling as we imagined getting a whole mini-army of Pons together to stage mock battles across the IGN offices, imagine what an adorable (And possibly GIGANTIC?) Pon made of snuggly, squishy innards could do for our poor, overworked melons. We're imagining it right now, and we're picturing little googly eyes that roll around when you move the thing and a new makeshift pillow as we institute the Official IGN Nap Hour. An awesome little collectable and regulated circadian rhythms?! Hell yeah; office productivity would go through the roof!

Themes

We might poke fun at the idea of Sony throwing a bunch of "brand synergy" across all these electronics, having the XMB in both the PSP and the PS3 has given rise to customization features to make it all even prettier -- specifically the ability to change the background and icons (and on the PS3, the sounds) to reflect a user's personality. Plus, since Sony seems to be on something of a kick about charging a few bucks for giggle-worthy, quasi-anime babe backgrounds, why not make people plunk down a few semolians for something directly game-related?

Panties

Your super-hot girlfriend is, well, super-hot. We know because you won't shut up about it, but if you really want to spice things up in the bedroom, then there can be no better aphrodisiac then officially licensed Patapon panties. OK, so maybe it's not everyone's idea of a turn-on, but it'll sell. Plus, as has already been ably demonstrated by the mysteriously ephemeral internet girls modeling game-themed undies, it's weirdly... hot? Well, it does something to us, anyway, and we wouldn't mind asking our significant others to don a pair. It's work-related, after all, and now they can't complain that we don't get them nice stuff!

PSN Re-Release

We want this so bad that we're going to will it into existence. It's simply way too awesome not to happen, which is why you must join us in channeling your powers of suggestion to beam the message loud and clear to Sony HQ: We want Patapon released on the PS3, upscaled to HD resolutions, packed with Trophies, and offered as a way to show more people why it was our PSP Game of the Year 2008. The fact that (at least from our time spent with it so far) Patapon 2 is a marked improvement over the concepts of the first game will only serve to get people interested in the PSP-only follow-up.

Soundtrack

If this doesn't actually happen, then there is nothing good left in this world. Over-dramatic gushing aside, the soundtrack to the game is, in a very real sense, the driving force behind everything you do with your little Pons, and as such needs to be one of the most memorable and entertaining parts of the game. Considering the number of times that those little chants rolled through our heads while we tried to sleep or took a shower even weeks after we'd finished the first game, we'd say it's got both those elements locked down. Plus, they say the best way to get something that's stuck in your head out is to hear it again, sooooooo...